Ten Years
by killgore444
Summary: Ten years of hate. Ten years of rage. Ten years of planning. Writers Anonymous 10 Year Challenge


All of the usual notes; I own none of the characters, this is a work of fanfiction and in no way is attempting to infringe on or profit from any copyrights or ownership of NCIS. I own nothing related to this story, not even any OCs I invent for it.

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This is for the Writers Anonymous 10 Year Challenge.

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 **Ten Years**

A single shot echoes in the night as Sergei Mishnev collapses in a heap at the edge of the headlight beams, gun still in his hand.

A second or two later, NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs steps out of the line of trees and walks up to Agent Tobias Fornel of the FBI, putting his hands on Fornel's arm to get him to lower his weapon. After several more seconds of staring at the body, they approach wordlessly to make sure he is dead. Bending down to examine the body, Gibbs notes the entry wound, dead center of his forehead.

 **"I got him."** Fornel says out loud.

 **"Yeah,"** Gibbs responds as he stands up, **"Do you feel better?"**

 **"Not even close."** Fornel says, **"Well, maybe a little!"**

Gibbs just smiles as he turns back to the copse of the half-brother of Ari Aswari. It's been two hours past that it was the ten year anniversary of Ziva killing Ari, who was also a half-brother to her. Ten years that Gibbs has had to put the pain and grief behind him. Ten years since Ari murdered Kate on that roof top. Ten years ago that Ziva David, then a Mossad Officer, killed her own half-brother in retribution. And ten years that Ari's half-brother on his mother's side had to build up hate for Gibbs, not realizing that it wasn't him who killed Ari.

Last week, it was ten years to the minute that Sergei killed Diane, in the exact same manner that Ari killed Kate. And it would have been to the minute killing Sergei as well, but he got lost on the way to Gibb's cabin in the woods.

Gibbs let Fornel kill Sergei; Diane was planning on remarrying Tobias, not him after all, he should get first crack at closure.

"So, this was your plan from the beginning huh?" Fornel asks, "Trick the slimy bastard out here so we can kill him."

"It worked didn't it?" Gibbs responds.

"How'd you do it? How'd you trick him here?"

"I had a talk with Councilor Pablinkof, I talked him into helping out."

"Pablinkof? The creep from the Russian embassy? I thought he was Sergei's friend."

"He was! A long time ago. They've had something of a falling out over the years."

"I guess I'll have to send him a thank you note." Tobias says. Then, holding up his hand, as if pointing at words on an imaginary billboard, "Dear Councilor; Thank you for finally getting off your ass and helping us catch the murdering son of a bitch who you've never bothered to try and catch before. Think that'll work?"

"Tobias, he helped. He helped a lot."

"I know, it's just… …it's just I can't help but think how different things would have worked had the Russians actually tried to catch him earlier. Hell it's the Russians, it's not like they've ever really cared about the rights of their citizens before, why the concern with making sure Sergei was guilty before putting him down from them?"

"Tobias! What the hell? You know damn good and well the same type of crap happens here, and that we've been trying to get Russia to ease things up on restrictions and open up more liberties to their people. I know it hurts, that we've been… …that you've been personally hurt by one of their criminals. But we've got no right to complain that Russia is finally actually doing it."

"I know damn it! But what am I going to do now? I've got a fourteen year old daughter who just lost her mother to someone who was trying to hurt you. She already suspects that much, so how do I explain this Jethro? How do I tell Emily what happened?"

""You tell her Tobias. You just tell her. Emily is smarter than either you or Diane, and she's tougher than you think. How she dealt with being kidnapped last year proves that. So just tell her. If you really need to, do what I did for Kate's sister, bring Emily here, let her stand where Sergei is laying, right there on that spot and tell her, this is where you killed the bastard. This is where the man, the monster who killed her mother died. Let her breath the air of this spot. She's fourteen, if she's going through a psychic faze, let her feel the psychic emanations of his death. Give her closure; let her know you love her. And Tobias, let her know you're going to stop drinking."

"Yeah yeah, I'll do that. Psychic faze huh? Where'd you come up with that one? Emily doesn't believe in that crap and you know it."

"She just lost her mom Tobias, one of her friends will mention summoning her spirit. You know it's going to happen. Just like you and Diane's last voice mail to you, she's going to be desperate enough to hear her voice again that she might actually try it. Hell; let her bring her friends out here and try it here. Let her ask Sergei how he likes it in hell?"

"Let's not, knowing my luck, the crap would turn out to be real and Sergei would possess one of her friends and try and kill her. Thanks, but I'll skip that advice."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that. Come on, we need to call this in." Gibbs says as he turns back to the cabin.

Turning to follow him, Fornel asks; "So, if Sergei was Ari's half-brother, how was he related to Ziva?"

"Ziva was Ari's half-brother from their father, Sergei was Ari's half-brother from their mother. She wasn't related to him."

"Yeah, I got that, I guess I meant did Ziva know about him, and if so, how come she never mentioned it to you?"

"Considering she didn't believe that Ari murdered Kate until she heard him confess it, I'm pretty sure he managed to keep her in the dark on quite a few things. And while I have no doubt what so ever that Eli knew, he wasn't exactly the most forthcoming with information. I'm guessing Ziva didn't know."

"Have you heard from her at all? I mean is there any chance that Sergei tracked her down first? She did move back to Israel and is former Mossad, he was Palestinian and a gun runner, it really wouldn't be all that hard for him to track her down."

At Fornel's words, Gibb's blood runs cold and he picks up the pace. It's been close to two years since he's heard from Ziva, and he hadn't found out about the connection between Ari and Sergei until after he brought Tobias out here to straighten him out. He needs to find out if Tony picked up on the same thing Tobias just did.

Ten years. It's been ten years since Ari killed Kate, and ten years since Ziva killed Ari. Ten years for the hate and rage to build in Sergei. Ten years is a long time. People will do powerful, dumb things after so long.


End file.
